


The Baba

by Glishara



Category: Vorkosigan Saga - Lois McMaster Bujold
Genre: F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-08-24
Updated: 2010-08-24
Packaged: 2017-10-11 06:06:07
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,967
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/109209
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Glishara/pseuds/Glishara
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When one's children won't do their duty in the marriage market, it is time for mothers to become aggressive...</p><p>Written for the prompt "Ivan, in despair, finally asks Lady Alys to arrange him a traditional Vor marriage. What does she looks for in a daughter-in-law?" in the 2010 Bujold Ficathon.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The Baba

"...and of course the Vorbrettens have just started their third child, another girl, I hear from dear Tatya's aunt. Lord Vorbataille is engaged at last; since his older brother's disgraceful business he has been rather remiss in not beginning a family. He has been courting Lady Anne Vorville, Lord Anton's widow of two years. She's a bit old for starting a family, but it doesn't matter as much these days, after all. She's the daughter of Lord Vorlightly, his third, and a very pretty girl, I always thought, though she hasn't spent much time in the capital since her first marriage. They'll be married this fall. Lady Helen Vorlakial has taken a post on Komarr, which was a shock to her parents. She was in school there, of course, but they expected her home after her graduation. She'll be teaching there and doing some sort of research or another."

It just went on and on. Ivan had picked up the trick of listening without paying attention, letting the words brush over him. Lady Helen he'd known slightly, and the Vorbrettens were old news – his mother had delayed this recitation of the social gossip enough for him to get some of it from other sources. It was a bit of a surprise to imagine pretty, giggly Helen as a researcher: she'd hidden her serious side too well beneath that shallow shell. He wondered whether she might like a visitor on Komarr. It was certainly time and past for him to find someone for himself.

It took too much work these days, that was the problem. He'd always intended to play the field until he'd made his way into his thirties, and then use his rank and connections to sweep up the best of the field. Now he was thirty-eight, and that field was filled with... distractions. Too damned many male distractions, scattered everywhere, lifting up rocks and peering behind hedges to find the best candidates.

And how was he supposed to have predicted that the sweeping democratization of the last few decades would sweep across the marriage market as well as everything else? Officers and merchants and industrialists, bolstered by wealth and status, though not the Vor name, were picking off the remaining Vor ladies with painful regularity. A sturdy, traditional Vor officer hardly had time to find the candidates, let alone court and win them.

"...and Elaine Vorsmythe has married a friend of her uncle's, not Vor, but a good man, with rising possibilities. Lord and Lady Vortashpula have just had their fourth child, and she was so fond of you, Ivan, it breaks my heart to think they could have been my grandchildren. I wish you would put in a little _effort_, Ivan, because you know you can be perfectly charming when you try. I am starting to think that if I ever want any grandchildren I'll be forced to ask Simon to --"

"Mother?"

It was not unprecedented for Ivan to interrupt Lady Alys during the high Vor vital statistics roll call, but it was rare enough to stop her instantly. "Ivan, dear?" she queried.

"Can't you just... do it all for me?"

His mother did not precisely stare at him – Lady Alys Vorpatril did not stare at anyone – but her interest was blank and intense. "Do it all for you?" she echoed.

"Yes." Ivan scuffed his foot on the floor. "Find a woman. Hire the baba. Do it all. You have time on your hands now, with the Empress taking over your social duties, and I... don't. Especially since my last promotion." The commodore's tabs were only a few months old, and fitted strangely. Well, but strangely.

"Don't scuff your boots, dear," his mother said automatically, distantly. "Find you... a wife?" she clarified. "You genuinely want me to?" She sounded almost faint.

"I guess. I mean, sure. I need one at some point, right? You'll at least do it all... right and proper. No one will raise eyebrows at it." Ha, yes, and his mother's involvement would suppress at least some of the wits. Most of the wits were afraid of her.

"I – well, yes, Ivan. If you want me to." Lady Alys was already off in some different place, running through names and places. It was time to escape.

"Well, good." Ivan stood up. "Good then. Good day, mother."

"Oh, yes. Behave yourself, Ivan."

Ivan had one hand on the door before the shoe dropped. He spun back to stare at his mother. "Ask Simon to what?"

#

Alys would not want it said she wasn't delighted by her son's request. She was startled, yes. Stunned, even. But delighted as well. It had been so many years of struggle – half of Ivan's life! And now, at last, to have him take a real interest! It wouldn't be an easy task, she knew, but she was certainly, indisputably, delighted.

She was just a bit annoyed. Not at Ivan, but at Simon. He couldn't stop laughing.

Every time she mentioned the subject, or even just mentioned Ivan, he would start. He was trying to control himself today, but not with much success. "Your eyes are still laughing, Simon!"

"I am... very sorry, Alys," he managed, sounding artificially stuffed as he fought his mirth down. "I will try."

"Cordelia has five grandchildren already! Five! And I have waited so long..."

The humor fell out of his eyes. "I know," he said quietly. "I am sorry. I'm not laughing at you. It's just... my goodness, the possibilities do jump out at you. Or at me, anyway."

"This is not revenge," Alys said, her prim voice laced with acid. "I want this marriage to work, Simon. I am not going to sabotage my own efforts with petty jokes."

"I... no. Of course not."

Not that she hadn't considered it for a few magical hours. Ivan's marriage prospects, entirely in her hands! Oh, who could she give him to mortify and horrify? Who, to make him regret the wasted years? But then, a bride of Ivan's was also a daughter-in-law to her, and mother to her grandchildren. The more she thought on it, the less any possibilities seemed _possible_.

Ivan needed a pretty girl, for himself, and one of sturdy mind and able temper, to keep him where he ought to be. He had little regard for anyone else's marriage vows, if the stories she had heard were true. She needed someone who could bind him to his own.

For her sake, she would have to be a proper Vor woman. On this, Alys could not sway. She wanted her grandchildren brought up correctly, and that meant a firm knowledge of Vor traditions. Not too young, and a woman eager for children. Intelligent, certainly, since she would be representing the Vorpatril name at social events for years to come. Her knowledge of the social scene was negotiable, but her willingness to learn was not. Alys might enjoy another apprentice. Laisa had been a delight.

Alys rather thought that a daughter of the country Vor might be best, in all. They tended to hold to the old ways, away from the galactic interface of the capital, and there was little chance Ivan had some secret history with them that would humiliate everyone involved. The problem was finding her.

She had renewed correspondence with several old friends settled out in the country, inquiring after daughters, granddaughters, nieces, and acquaintances. She had (feeling horribly guilty) looked back a few years at the obituary reports, in search of eligible widows.

She found herself, driven no doubt by insanity brought on by lack of sleep, confiding in Cordelia, who choked on her tea and sputtered, "An arranged marriage? For _Ivan_?" When Alys had confirmed it, and begun to speak of the difficulties, Cordelia had started to laugh, and could not seem to stop.

"Oh!" she managed to get out. "Now, _there's_ a revenge I never imagined!"

"I would never do a thing like that," Alys informed her primly, bringing on another set of giggles.

"Oh, you poor, poor thing."

Alys had not raised the subject again.

Ivan had taken to coming to dinner once a week, talking briefly about work, social affairs, and the bustle of gossip in the capital. Every week, the question would come. Every week, Alys would tell him to be patient. Never before had he shown so much interest in the news she had to share. It was galling.

Her social life was more and more taken up with the search. Luncheons with old friends, trips out of town to visit with cousins and old allies of her late husband's, more and more social meetings with the younger set, evaluating and analyzing.

She still found time to squeeze in the occasional tea with her friends in the capital, however, and it was at one of these, at Vorkosigan House with Cordelia, Ekaterin, and Professora Vorthys, that she found the first threads of hope.

It began with a conversation about Ekaterin's work.

"It has been slow, of course," Lady Vorkosigan was saying, "around the children and Miles's schedule, but I've finally come to where I feel qualified in the work I'm doing in the District. I suppose I'm past the time for it now – nearly forty, after all – but it is a good feeling. I took a nontraditional path to get here, but I am proud of where I am."

"More and more young women are following that course," said the Professora. "The average age of men in my classes has remained almost constant over the last forty years, but the women are getting steadily older. They're women like you were, who made choices as children that carried them on a path into adulthood that did not suit them as much as they expected. It takes courage to say, 'It is time to try again,' but many of them are finding that courage."

"It makes sense," Cordelia said. "Young Vor girls from the country, fed romance from the cradle, try the myth and find it's speckled with all these thorns no one warned them of. With easier communication, more spread of information, they can see the other possibilities out there. With so many asking 'What if?', it follows that some would try to find out."

"Do I understand you right?" Alys asked, trying to sound only moderately interested. "The university is filling with young women who have lived enough of life to know themselves? Intelligent, curious women, from the country? Vor women?"

Cordelia rolled her eyes, and Alys pretended not to see.

"Well, I don't think I would say filling, precisely," the Professora said, missing the secret translations Cordelia could read so easily. "But there are more than there were."

"You must introduce me," Alys said forcefully. Cordelia blew out her breath and looked... vastly amused.

#

Most of the girls were impossible, as Alys should have expected. These were young women who had won free of boxes into which their parents had lovingly placed them. They did not look for marriage, and even if they had, they would certainly not welcome a visit from the Baba. They wanted to make their own way. Alys could certainly sympathize, though she regretted it. There were a few she liked a great deal, and she would maintain the connections for their own sake. It would not do, she understood, to neglect the younger generation as they moved into their own sociopolitical power spheres.

She was having a second lunch with Anastasia Vortalon, a law student in her mid-thirties, when the young woman mentioned her sister.

"She's built up these ideals of a Vor life for herself," Miss Vortalon explained in some exasperation. "She doesn't realize how much of a trap it can be if you don't have luck in your chosen spouse. You can never really tell what kind of husband a man will be when he's trying to court you." Her expression was dark. Alys knew she had been married, but they were hardly intimate enough to share the details.

"For some women, it works out very well," Alys said. "I was very happy with my husband, and I know many others who were equally fortunate. Marrying for multiple motives does not mean that love cannot grow, if commitments are made in good faith."

"I suppose so," Anastasia said with a sigh. "But how can you know if they are? It is so much better to be sure you have a firm footing underneath you before you try to pull someone else into your world. If it crumbles, you have something to fall back on."

Alys sampled a pastry from the restaurant's dessert tray. "You don't think Elizabeth is being cautious enough?"

"No," said Anastasia. "She just graduated with high honors: it is time to step out into the world and learn who she is. She could have any number of offers – job offers, not marriage, and instead is agitating for a trip to the capital and into the social scene here."

"Maybe she simply knows what she wants," Alys offered.

"She doesn't even know who she is," Anastasia replied. Her voice was unexpectedly hard.

Alys changed the subject. When she returned home, she called Joseph and Olivia Vortalon.

#

She had an excuse for calling, of course, but when the Vortalon family received her at their Vormoncrief District home, she quickly dispatched it and shifted to the kind of polite social research in which she was so skilled. In a quarter of an hour's conference, she had extracted from them their family connections and history, the names, marital status, and occupations of all of their children, and a sense of their wealth and social status.

When she asked whether any of the children were at home still, she was told that Elizabeth was upstairs, and another word brought her down. Elizabeth was a pretty girl, of perhaps twenty-five.

"Miss Elizabeth," Alys greeted with a smile. "Your mother tells me you studied art at the district university?"

"Yes, Lady Alys," Elizabeth replied, lowering herself to sit. She was unsure of the social cues, Alys judged, but polite, and her little errors were balanced by a calm confidence that would serve her well in the capital scene. "Art history. Specifically the period during and shortly after the Cetagandan Invasion. The arrival of galactic technologies, galactic materials, and galactic ideas made for a period of incredible transition in the arts here, and of course, the Cetagandans themselves made contributions, both in their influences and the backlash against them. My senior thesis was on the different ways Vorashburn, Paradijs, and Vormarin reacted to the various political and technological forces of their time."

Alys listened with interest as she spoke. "Have you been out of school long?" she asked.

"Just since this spring," Elizabeth said. "Three months. It's been good to reconnect with people in the area, but I do miss the bustle of the city."

"Did you leave a young man behind?" Alys asked with the kind of cheerful old-lady intrusiveness she'd seen work so well in others.

"Oh, no. Just friends, and the social scene. We're not very close to anything here. I'm hoping to spend some time in Vorbarr Sultana over the summer. I'd like to see the museums, try the restaurants, attend some parties, maybe. See some new people."

"Well, should you ever find yourself there," Alys said, "I hope you will call on me."

#

She spent a few days quietly looking into Elizabeth Vortalon, and was very pleased with what she found. More and more, the young woman was beginning to look promising. When Elizabeth arrived in Vorbarr Sultana to stay with her sister for two months over the summer, it seemed almost fate. Alys invited both of them to a dinner at a local hotel, and noticed with some pleasure that Ivan's eyes lingered on the girl.

"How goes the bride search, Mother?" he asked at the close of the evening.

"Be patient, Ivan dear," she told him, without any exasperation at all today.

Everything was falling into place.

It was nearly seven months after Ivan had first asked for her help that Alys decided the time had come to call the Baba. She knew she had to speak with Ivan first, of course, but she couldn't imagine he would have any objections.

At their weekly dinner, Ivan seemed preoccupied, poking at his food and not paying as much attention as he often did. "Mother," he began after the standard chit-chat, and then stopped, as if not sure what to say.

"I think," Alys said, "that I know what you're going to ask, and --"

"No," Ivan interrupted. Alys froze. Ivan never interrupted her. Hardly anyone interrupted her, for that matter. It shocked her into a brief silence. "I don't think you do. I – mother, I've asked Cecily Vorinnis to marry me."

Alys stared. Lady Alys Vorpatril didn't stare at anyone, but she would make an exception for this. "You... what?"

"And she's said yes." Ivan squared his chin.

Lady Alys let this idea turn around in her head. "Oh," she said after a long moment.

"Are you unhappy?" Ivan asked, sounding tense and nervous. "She's high Vor, young enough, a good woman. I think I'll make her happy. I know she'll make me happy."

"Oh... yes. Certainly." Alys thought of Elizabeth Vortalon, and refrained from sighing. "Well. I am very happy for you, Ivan. And it's about time!"

As Ivan talked on about his new love – and how had she failed to see this happening? – Alys picked forlornly at an ornamentally cut tomato, saying goodbye to her chosen daughter-in-law.

#

Late that evening, as Simon Illyan lay with Alys's head cradled on his shoulder, her dark hair loose and glorious around her face, he heard her ask, "Simon, would you like to have a baby?"


End file.
